Deepfakes have made a huge impact in the latter half of the previous decade, an impact so incredible that it completely changed the way that we viewed videos and other images online. The videos made using deepfake technology are so convincing that they blur the line between what’s real and what’s not, and this means that it has implications that most people are really not going to want to think about because of the fact that they could lead to the spreading of quite a bit of propaganda and at the same time could lead to misuse on the internet on a more personal as well as individual level as well.
In order to curb the impact that deepfakes can have a lot of tech giants have started developing a lot of different strategies in order to tackle it, from algorithms that are meant to discover what videos are deepfakes and which are actually real as well as user policies that are meant to govern how you use the platform and make it clear that deepfakes are not allowed on the platform and that you could be penalized for developing or disseminating them.
However, Facebook has come under fire for not being strict enough with deepfakes including an infamous incident last year where US politician Nancy Pelosi was featured in a deepfake that stayed up for an entire year with lots of people believing that it was actually real rather than being a doctored video. Facebook is now tightening the restrictions surrounding deepfakes so much so that it would make it more likely that the video would get removed before it can do any real damage, something that is really going to contribute towards preventing deepfakes from having too much of an impact on our day to day lives.
Facebook in a press release announced that:
Read next: Snapchat introduces new ‘deepfake’ feature worth over $160 million
In order to curb the impact that deepfakes can have a lot of tech giants have started developing a lot of different strategies in order to tackle it, from algorithms that are meant to discover what videos are deepfakes and which are actually real as well as user policies that are meant to govern how you use the platform and make it clear that deepfakes are not allowed on the platform and that you could be penalized for developing or disseminating them.
However, Facebook has come under fire for not being strict enough with deepfakes including an infamous incident last year where US politician Nancy Pelosi was featured in a deepfake that stayed up for an entire year with lots of people believing that it was actually real rather than being a doctored video. Facebook is now tightening the restrictions surrounding deepfakes so much so that it would make it more likely that the video would get removed before it can do any real damage, something that is really going to contribute towards preventing deepfakes from having too much of an impact on our day to day lives.
Facebook in a press release announced that:
"Going forward, we will remove misleading manipulated media if it meets the following criteria, It has been edited or synthesized – beyond adjustments for clarity or quality – in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say. And: It is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic. This policy does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words."
Read next: Snapchat introduces new ‘deepfake’ feature worth over $160 million
